Willard Boyle and George Smith are two innovators who just last week got the recognition they long deserved for their contribution which quite literally changed the way we see the world. The two Nobel laureates who were presented their Nobels for Physics in Norway last week invented the charge-coupled device which most of us commonly know as the CCD which is the core technology used by digital cameras today. What is fascinating is Boyle and Smith had invented the CCD 40 years ago back in 1969 and though all these years later as they collect what is perceived to be the highest accolade in science, perhaps the bigger prize was seeing how the finger nail sized device they came up with touched the lives of so many.

One of the largest impact it’s had is in the development of the digital photo camera which almost each of us own whether in the form of an SLR camera, a point and shoot digital camera or even one that’s housed in our mobile phones.  The core CCD technology is now being used in a variety of technologies and almost all electronic and appliances firms are involved in applications around it.

To see who is active and aggressive in CCD related research, we did a broad search on CCD technology and using Patent iNSIGHT Pro came up with a couple of quick stats. The first one is the overall trend across key Assignees that shows that while Samsung and Kodak have been periodically  filing for patents in this space, recent research has subsided for other large companies such as Hyundai, Fuji and Sony. One can easily see the emergence of Hon Hai precision Co as a recent company in this space.




To confirm this further, we split the company portfolios across 5 year sets (2000-2004) and (2005-2010) to compare their trends:



The above chart shows that big companies that have renewed interest in CCD and related technologies are Siemens, Honeywell, General Electric, Philips and Xerox. The activity analysis further shows some firms building targeted portfolios such as Hong Fu Jin Precision Co, Chemimage, Avision and ASML Holdings NV. 

The trends of General Electric and Hon Hai Precision clearly stand out since both do not have any filings that talk about CCDs in 2000-2004 and have 16 and 68 filings respective in the last 5 years. To find out the focus areas of these filings, we used text clustering on the individual portfolios of each company. The analysis showed that the GE filings focus on Radiation detection, Scintillators, Plasma spectroscopy and X-rays. Hon Hai Precision Co’s focus was more on camera lens for imaging, monitoring and measuring across a variety of areas right from vehicular systems to cameras.

Finally, to know the different research areas in which CCD technology has grown into and their trends we took the IPC distribution again across a 5 year period and compares the growth/decay from 2000-2004 period to 2005-2010 period. This is shown below:



To sum up, forty years into the technology life-cycle, CCD is still going strong with companies across the world still discovering new applications in various areas with the help of this device.

The European Patent Academy did an insightful presentation Patent & Innovation Management at Istanbul at the start of this month. While the presentation covers a wider topic, a single slide on the innovation process stands out to demonstrate the importance of having a robust IP knowledge management system in place to ensure the flow of information along side the process.



The innovation process involves:

Creation of Ideas >> Project Design >> Project Development >> Production >> Market Launch

In any innovation driven business each of these areas can be further broken down into multiple activities which revolve around the development and management of intellectual property including activities like filing for new patents, protecting IP assets, maneuvering through competitors patents, strategic product development and more. However the value of right information is critical throughout the cycle. IP knowledge and intelligence functions as a support pillar right from creation of ideas to marketing the product and right through the product life-cycle.

The entire innovation process is supported and seen through by multiple departments and functions within the company. Its a combined effort of research, thinkers, designers, developers, legal professionals, finance, marketing, strategy and others and each of them must rely on IP intelligence to guide them through their roles in the innovation process. Having an in-house IP Knowledge Management platform helps since IP knowledge, access to it and ability to use it well is a common requirement across each department who has a role in this process. With such systems a company can offer a common knowledge platform that can be leveraged across the board. Along with patents even scientific literature like journals and other publications can be processed to provide intelligence on markets, customers, technology, processes, business strategies, risks, opportunities and competitors which can aid everyone involved in the innovation process.

The efficient flow of IP data and intelligence within an organization can fuel better innovation and translate into more gains for businesses.

Every one of us has the ability to innovate, be creative and develop something new. We do this by developing on something we already know and pushing it to the next level. That is how innovation happens even on the larger business levels if you take a big step back and look at it quite simply:

Existing Knowledge + Improving On It = Incremental Innovation

We often look at research and development as a function which relies on very extensive knowledge of what exists around us and then looking for ways to improve on it and take it up a notch. This is echoed in a brilliant post I recently read by Gord Hotchkiss titled “Predicting Innovation” where he says:

Great innovation builds on what comes before it. This lines up with something I have long believed – there is no such thing as revolutionary innovation, just a series of incremental evolutionary innovations that at some point reaches a tipping point and appears to be revolutionary. I've used the iPhone as an example before.

Great Innovation does not require people to make radical changes in beliefs or behavior - Again, with incremental innovation, the market must understand the innovation and relate it to something they're used to. The iPhone made smartphones smarter, more fun and more useful. It didn't require us to make a great leap of

The same applies to just about any industry whether pharmaceuticals, healthcare, automobiles or technology. Every breakthrough product has been a result of extensive research and understanding of what has already been developed by others in the field and making incremental improvements which can often translate into a considerable jump forward.

Acquiring and managing information and knowledge is a large part of the incremental innovation process and having the right systems in place can support this process to great degree. Access to the right technical papers, patent information and related data open up avenues to increase the knowledge base one has to work with. And that leads to a common problem today – Information overload. How you manage all the information, create data points from assimilation of the information then bring out insights is as important as having access to the information.

Therein comes the need for knowledge mining solutions that help you unlock insights from the masses of data with ease and efficiency and further also help in overall managing the information so that you can quickly refer back to it at a later period of time. We recently referred to such a solution as - intellectual property knowledge management solutions in our Enterprise Edition Solution Brief. The  ‘flow of’ insights from IP data is critical to the R&D process is setting up the right processes with a robust system in place can help them focus more on the most important component of incremental innovation mentioned above- “Improving On It”. This is after all where abilities to make a difference come in and innovative skills are rewarded.

Improving on what is known is where the focus of product development should be instead of re-inventing what is already known. With the help of the right knowledge solutions which can accelerate the information management process, product development teams know where the boundaries are and can redirect their energies towards pushing these boundaries forward. Isn’t that the key to breakthrough developments?   

As companies leave the worst of the global recession behind them and economies with the help of stimulus packages from their respective governments are starting to pick up again there is acceleration in R&D and innovation as well.  News and blog posts in the innovation realm look positive with more frequent stories of spending on R&D is gradually picking up. Reports suggested that investment on R&D during the recession did increase even during the recession although at a lower rate than previous years. This post by Mark J Perry titled Despite Recession, Innovation Is Alive and Well. In the post Mark reveals

“In the face of a severe global recession, the world’s 1,000 largest publicly traded corporate research and development spenders increased R&D budgets in 2008, affirming the critical importance of innovation to their corporate strategies, according to Booz & Company’s Global Innovation 1000, the global management consulting firm’s fifth annual analysis of global innovation spending. R&D spending at these firms rose 5.7% in 2008, a slower rate of growth than the prior year’s 10% increase, but in line with the group’s 6.5% increase in worldwide sales. More than two-thirds of the companies included in this year’s Global Innovation 1000 maintained or increased R&D spending in 2008, even though a third of the companies reported a financial loss for the year.

However during the downturn almost every business had to look into it’s processes and make changes that would help see them through this rough financial period and whatever those changes were, they are not likely to go away in the near future. Mergers and Acquisitions in IP pickedup as many smaller firms facing closure had their IP up for sale. While some large businesses were also looking at trimming their patent portfolios others with a larger cash reserves were busy aggregating portfolios that were valuable and available for pennies to the dollar. Many IP departments were forced to look at operational efficiencies and as to how they can save time and cost and achieve better output. Innovation and R&D are no exceptions to this. Although organizations know that innovation is key to secure future success and will continue to invest in R&D, they are also likely to continue to look for ways to improve their R&D processes and innovate smart rather than by pouring capital into it.

Smarter innovation practices can be through using online collaboration platforms and getting customers more involved in the process. It can be through seeking strategic partnerships with other organizations working towards similar technologies to share R&D costs and speed up efforts. It could be through improving patent information sharing systems and having access to better information, making smarter, better calculated decisions and avoiding mistakes that can cost time and money. The possibilities are plenty. What is left to do is find out how to innovate smarter and strengthen the process from the inside and make it more efficient. After all innovation needs to work towards creating revenue and advantages for the business and not be perceived as a cost center or financial black hole.

Perhaps the recession in many ways helped organizations pause and take a look at how they were functioning and pushed everyone to seek improved ways to go about it. Though the pressure has eased, hopefully, the will to keep improving and making R&D more efficient will not fade away too quickly.

Every year a spike of innovation marked by an increase in patent filings happens in one or more of the several industry segments and creates a buzz grabbing everyone’s attention. This year one that comes to attention instantly is going green. The global initiative on battling climate change has gathered tremendous momentum this year as compared to the past and combines with several other environmental issues faced globally such as depleting mineral energy resources and waste the emphasis on innovation to work towards environmentally friendly technology and sustainable businesses has reached a new level.

A recent news article on Green Energy Reporter  said:

The United States Patent and Trademark Office granted some 271 clean energy patents during the third quarter of 2009, which is the highest amount of approved patents in a single quarter, according to the latest Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI) compiled by law firm Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti.

While companies across the globe are stepping up their research and development efforts to step up discoveries of greener energy sources, finding solutions to the issues we face is not just restricted to energy. CleanTechnica.com published a great article on how leading footwear manufacturer Nike has been using innovation and collaboration to develop footwear and apparels out of sustainable and recyclable material while making it financially viable for production as soon as possible. An extract quoted Nike in that article said:

From Nike: The long-term vision for Considered is to design products that are fully closed loop: produced using the fewest possible materials, designed for easy disassembly while allowing them to be recycled into new product or safely returned to nature at the end of their life. By 2011, 100 percent of footwear will meet baseline Considered standards, apparel by 2015 and equipment by 2020 – creating better performing products while minimizing environmental impact by reducing waste, using environmentally preferred materials and eliminate toxins.

Organizations have set themselves very tight deadlines and understand they are working against time when it comes to “going green”. That means the research and development organizations have to step up the innovation, look for ways to tap ideas from universities and external teams (Open Innovation) and move quicker. Researching internal generated IP and external IP is a key information driver for Open Innovation.

How you organize all the researched information is as important as conducting the research since you can quickly hit information overload. Having the right Intellectual Property Knowledge Management system is important for a better organized, more efficient process. Being better organized involves improving workflows and  improving management and communication of analyzed information to the decision maker in minimum time. Well managed patent data can help tremendously in the research process, understanding what competitors are doing, finding collaborators working in a similar direction, acquiring technology needed to speed up the process and more. You can then make internal workflows quicker and efficient and easily share data involved in the innovation process both within departments across the organization and outside with partners or third parties involved.  

The race against time to develop greener alternatives to the way we function today will require the best minds to come together in a quest for solutions and thereby compel companies to come together, work collaboratively, share information and innovate.  That calls for organizations to be more open about IP research and have systems that can scale to support research happening locally and externally.

In telecom circles everyone is following the patent infringement battle between Nokia and Apple with keen interest on how it pans out. Nokia claims Apple infringed on no less than 10 of it’s patents related to wireless standards with the launch of the iPhone and no royalties or licensing fees have been paid by Apple till date. What started out as a competitive strategy battle has made it’s way to federal court and the battle has intensified having the online users everywhere support their favorite cell phone manufacturers and having their own little war on blogs and web publications. The Silicon Valley Insider ‘s Business Insider published a post titled “Lame Nokia Sues Apple Over iPhone Patent Infringement “ making their view clear in support of their home team Apple but it questions whether their stand would be down played had the tables been turned and Nokia used Apple’s Multi-Touch technologies in their line smart phones clearly taking away Apple’s innovative advantage. Calling a company “lame” for protecting or enforcing its IP may be a little over the top.  After all aren’t patents a strategic advantage rewarding innovation?

The cell phone manufacturing industry has always been one driven by innovation with the companies which have been able to think out of the box and innovate being rewarded with market share. There was a time not too long ago when Motorola was the force to reckon with. Although their market share gradually diminished and they lost out to other handset makers, their intellectual property rights portfolio has long out lived and out-performed their handset sales as companies today still license many core components which were invented and patented by Motorola.  Virtually every handset manufacturer has had to build their new products by licensing some components or technologies from others patents. What is not very clear and yet to come out is whether Apple missed these patents while developing and launching the iPhone or if they were aware that they were open to patent infringement claims and decided to ignore it till something came up.

In any technology intensive industry it’s not impossible to miss patents which should have been brought to attention during the research and development process or during product development and marketing. Patent research and competitive monitoring data is often managed by multiple people across departments using a multitude of databases, systems, software and vendors. IP research and analysis for new product development can get quite unwieldy without a comprehensive patent system and process for managing workflows and tracking patent sets and it isn’t all that difficult to overlook technologies and their underlying patents that could be very important to have noted. Here is an extract from the post carried by the Business Insider which can put things into perspective:

During the last two decades, Nokia has invested approximately EUR 40 billion in research and development and built one of the wireless industry's strongest and broadest IPR portfolios, with over 10,000 patent families. Nokia is a world leader in the development of GSM technologies and its evolution to UMTS / 3G WCDMA as well as wireless LAN, which is also demonstrated by Nokia's strong patent position in these technologies.  

With 10,000 patent families to track and keep an eye on from one manufacturer such as Nokia and likewise many patent portfolios held by other manufacturers in the same space the possibility of patent infringement liabilities is ever present as are the odds of overlooking important patents which could come back at a future date in the form of lawsuits or claims.

Apple in comparison is relatively new in handset market and has already broken ground with its superb UI innovation capabilities which is evident from their iPhone product. The Multi-touch technology which has been patented is just one of those innovations and as Apple’s portfolio grows over time other handset companies will have to keep tabs on Apple’s patents and may find themselves with horns locked in a similar situation some day. While many will base their opinions on whose phone they like better or who their favorite cell phone manufacturer is, the battle is about innovation and the ability to protect IP. In sum, businesses that innovate should be rewarded for their efforts.

Access to the best possible intelligence is the backbone of any practicing law firm and investments in research and information enhancement capabilities often translates directly into being able to build strong cases for clients. There is no exception to intellectual property law firms when it comes to building intelligence assets.

Most ongoing engagement with clients requires a law firm to have access to quick insights from the set of patents relevant to the case. Insights from having records in a research and analysis platform can immensely help the engagement at different stages.

Here is a quick summary of how patent analysis tools can assist external attorneys in their client engagements:

• Firms can efficiently manage IP records that are being researched as part of different client engagements. Searches being done internally or being received from external service providers can be integrated into a common portfolio where the attorney can conduct finer review, refinement and analysis.

•  Attorneys can quickly open these portfolios in front of a client during a meeting to back up the advise or insight being given.

• Patent analysis tools can help attorneys focus on the legal review aspect and spend less time in preparing data and results to to support ongoing litigations.

• For most clients, patent text is often quite raw and technical in nature and perhaps not suitable when making a clear statement. Solutions with good analytics and reporting capabilities help present the data in a very clear graphical or tabular format which helps law firms bring out the facts plain and simple in a fashion that makes sense to end users.

• Advanced Search Capabilities in tools like Patent iNSIGHT Pro, include features such as SLART (Simultaneous left and right truncation), Approximate searching, Quick similarity matching between Claims across full text of other records can be very useful when conducting infringement and patentability studies.

• Tools such as keyword generation and clustering that summarize very specific words, sentences, phrases and even topics within patents could offer a huge advantage when drafting new product application in a congested technology space. ( Here is an earlier article that spoke about how keyword analysis can be done on claims.)

• Ability to narrow down and efficiently analyze the right patent set  can help conduct preliminary research before filing for new applications for clients. It allows law firms to know of any objections or obstacles patent officers might have even before starting the application process.

• Many small and  mid-sized technology firms that do not have internal IP research capabilities increasingly rely on external counsel for advice on overall IP strategy. Having the right tools to detect infringement, monitor competitor information, study trends, track recent activity and gather crucial facts is critical for such engagements.

• Ongoing Litigation activity also requires data to be analyzed and presented suitably in the court as evidence to back a claim.

Access to intellectual property and patent information per se is not difficult. Being able to have quick access and answers to very specific questions and being able to retrieve facts with speed and ease is what can offer IP and patent law firms the upper hand in their daily practice and the right patent data analysis software can help unlock this advantage.  

 

Patent analysis tools though all geared to deliver information and intelligence around patents are often different in terms of their features and capabilities. How do you know what features to look for in a solution that would help your organization? Here is a brief overview of the various important features found in most comprehensive patent data analysis tools and  what components to look out for during the evaluation process.

Search Capabilities

In most cases the search has already been done on a database, so why would you want search in an analysis solution? Searching is usually a requirement for custom portfolio categorization and further its critical when conducting deeper analysis such as infringement or FTO. Even when looking at a chart, its important to be able to immediately drill-down from the chart and search through the segmented portion to get to the answer or insight you seek. Finally, many a time you have your custom fields such as  Docket Ids, tags, comments etc associated with each record and you would like to include these in your search.

Patent Text Mining functions

When working with sets of 10000 records or more if you want to quickly understand what locate topics of interest or sometimes even understand which topics are prominent across the set and what sub-topics they are associated with, a powerful tunable auto-categorization engine is a must.Solutions that are created specifically for mining and clustering patent text are better suited than more general text mining solutions. Generating keyword lists and using such list for statistical analysis is another popular method used to gain insights on trends across companies, inventors and their patents.

Analytics Capabilities

Some of the capabilities that should be covered are co-occurrence matrices, generating top 10/20/50 lists and  citation analytics. Together they help analyze relationships and spot trends within a certain space and lifecycles of technologies and more. Drilling-down to the actual patents from any of the functions is key.  It’s always good to get a few analytics questions that your organization has, tested and verified using the analytics capabilities so that you are sure if the solution is up to the task of handling your patent intelligence needs.

Charting and Visualization

Converting the results from patent analysis into a powerful visual or graphical representation with ease is a definite must. In many cases exporting visuals to image files is  critical so that they can be reused in your reports or power-points. A good visualization and reporting component helps convey the insight easily without any need for explanation. Powerful visuals necessitate actions from the information consumers typically senior management and result in swift decision making.

Reporting

Generating different styles of reports to suit varying needs across an organization is perhaps the most common activity. Support for a wide range of flexible report types is useful with output format as word or excel so that the user can modify the report as per needs after it has been generated.

User Interface & Ease of Use

There is always a fine balance between having a feature loaded analytics software tools  packed to the brim with options and one that is easy to use even for  someone with relatively little experience of patent information. A good solution in this respect is one that has a relatively easy to use user interface which one can get familiar with in a short time and at the same time have the flexibility and options to allow the user to customize features, options and the environment that they will be working with regularly when any patent analysis has to be done. A very easy to use interface may not always give you that flexibility and range of customization while an extremely complex interface may defeat the purpose and make the process of analyzing data more tedious rather than easier. Look out for an interface which gives you both ease of use along with flexibility of options.

Apart from the above some of the other capabilities to look for are data export features, associating your own custom fields with patent data, rating or scoring system and performance at 10000+ record levels.

A common challenge we have seen across organizations who have access to reliable IP information and intelligence from various patent databases but find it overwhelming to integrate, manage large volumes of patent data, organise various ongoing research and investigation projects and to quickly locate answers to their questions. The solution to this lies in having a comprehensive patent research and analysis platform which can make it most of your activities much simpler. Here is a 60 second Slideshare presentation which highlights this challenge. Be sure to catch the link to our 7 minute webcast video at the end of this presentation!

 

It’s everywhere! Blogs are buzzing with opinions and views on it, Twitter is flowing with tweets and references to it and IP professionals, innovators and the software industry are glued to  In re Bernard L. Bilski and Rand A. Warsaw v. Kappos  where the battle for patent rights for software and in particular business methods has turned into a war of sorts.

Some of the large stalwarts in software such as IBM, Yahoo, Accenture among many have shown strong support for extensive patent rights for software.  Several other smaller software firms, developers and organizations like the Free Software Foundation see software patenting as detrimental to progress and future of the software technology industry. Gene Quinn of IPWatchDog.com in his post went a somewhat fresh route and not just backed the need for software patents but also insisted that star-ups and smaller companies have a lot to gain from filing patents for their software technology in his recent post  “Why All Small Businesses Need Software Patents”. The battle on whether software patents should be allowed or not is a tough one with arguments both for and against this idea.

Those against it argue software code is logic and mathematical and the current patent system is just not equipped to handle such an issue. It’s almost like Twitter can make a claim they invented the “What are you doing now?” component of the application which allows people to update what they are doing through their software and claim “this is code” they used and it should be protected from others using their idea. Someone like Facebook however could claim that they already had this feature as part of their application where people could update what they were doing and share it with friends long before Twitter and their code though different was the original claim to this innovation. The arguments can go on endlessly and further innovation and development of software can be hampered if every single software component some developer programmed were to be patented and off-limits to other software not to mention how much more expensive software could become if every such component had to be licensed to create a working application.

On the other hand there is very little advantage for a true innovator or first mover in the software field and very little protection from the large players. For example if a smart developer invents an algorithm which can help identify and recognize objects and details in graphic images like photos and wants to monetize this through building a full application and creating a start-up, it could be just a matter of time before some large player like Flickr or Microsoft discover this and have their R&D departments replicate the technology perhaps with different code. In this system, those with the marketing might or large pockets to buy smaller players benefit without the real innovators being rewarded proportionately. That alone makes a fairly strong case for software patenting. 

Whichever side you take, there are compelling arguments and there is no doubt that if a race for patenting software inventions starts, it will have a long term impact on the industry. It could change the way we develop software or at least the approach development. It would mean rather than simply checking for copyrights and licenses for certain applications or components, businesses will now have to study and analyze all patent sets around their project to look out for liabilities and possible infringement cases before getting behind the screen to start coding. It’s still important to consider the software industry can’t easily be compared to the pharmaceutical industry or the automobile industry where patenting and IP protection have been an inherent part of their world. Yet, this new industry has developed at lightning speed and the stakes are high for everyone involved. Though this battle is not over, the way it finally turns out will depend heavily on public view and everyone’s opinion.

So what is your take on it? Should extensive software patenting rights be granted? How would you see this battle resolved?